


Five Centimeters

by bookwyrmling



Series: xxxHOLiCHalloween Week 2015 [3]
Category: xxxHoLic
Genre: Feels, Light Angst, M/M, Shopkeeper!Watanuki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 22:05:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6725341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookwyrmling/pseuds/bookwyrmling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As delicious as it was, it was not Watanuki’s food or liquor that Doumeki looked forward to the most every day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Centimeters

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day 5 of the Tumblr xxxHOLiCHalloween Week.
> 
> Prompt: Treat
> 
> Not exactly the biggest Halloween presence, but I apologize for NOTHING.

When Watanuki had first taken over the shop and Doumeki would come from high school with groceries and stay for a meal, they would both sit on the back porch, a tray with tea or, whenever Watanuki was in a good mood, alcohol, between them. Doumeki never took a measuring tape, but he did not need it to know that Watanuki never sat closer than one meter, the tray – and often Mokona – serving as a buffer.

One meter was their boundary, but it was close enough for Doumeki to tell if Watanuki had injured himself by mistaking a price and that was what really mattered. He had Mokona to tell him anything else he might need to know, after all.

Each year, the distance between them shrunk by exactly ten centimeters. Doumeki did not think Watanuki noticed, but he certainly was not going to be the one to point it out. Watanuki might retreat and Doumeki was finding he preferred it when Watanuki was closer. He could tell when Watanuki was not only injured or not, but if he had been smoking or drinking too much or if he had not slept well the night before. He could see when Watanuki was remembering Yuuko or when he had spoken on the phone with Kunogi.

His second year at university, the distance between them had shrunk enough that, after the snacks on the tray had been finished and Watanuki had gone inside to refill the drinks, the tray had been set behind them rather than between them.

And Watanuki had been the one to put it there.

“Finish up what you have before you go begging for more, you glutton!” Watanuki had scolded, misconstruing the reason for Doumeki’s silent stare at the tray. Doumeki had downed the last of the sake in his hand before holding the cup out for a refill all the same.

The distance continued to shrink each year: ten centimeters and another ten centimeters. By the time he had graduated and taken up his position as a professor’s assistant as he worked on his post-grad thesis, Doumeki could have reached out and touched Watanuki with ease. He kept his hands in his lap or holding onto his glass, instead. At this distance, Doumeki could hear each inhale Watanuki took on his pipe – no longer a process filled with coughing and tears – and even when Watanuki had not specifically blown the smoke in his direction, he could feel the nicotine rush through his system and taste the green tea aftertaste the kizami always seemed to hold.

Doumeki went home those nights buzzed on more than alcohol and his morning cup of tea sent a warmth of something far more than physical curling in his gut while he looked over that day’s grocery list.

Of course Doumeki knew the ten centimeters would eventually slow or stop. Watanuki might have accepted him and his presence, but there would always be a distance that was more than just physical. Doumeki was aging; Watanuki wasn’t. Watanuki was growing more powerful. His clientele grew and he did not hurt himself nearly at all anymore. Doumeki feared sometimes he would lose Watanuki the human, Watanuki his friend, just Watanuki. He was becoming more and more like his predecessor, but, every so often, Doumeki would see a reaction – a glimmer in his eyes or a tug at the corner of his lips or even a physical threat – that told the assistant Watanuki was still there.

The same year they breached twenty centimeters, they breached five.

Tsuyuri was a student of the professor he assisted and while they maintained a professional relationship at the school, they both found an equally interesting topic of conversation in Watanuki. Tsuyuri had stopped by the shop today with some umeshu from Obaa-san which Mokona had demanded they open up that very evening. Watanuki, thanks to Tsuyuri’s presence, had let his guard down and drunk more than usual. While experience had trained Watanuki’s body, the man was still what Doumeki would consider a lightweight, preferring to smoke rather than drink more than a glass or two most nights.

As Doumeki watched Watanuki lean against the pillar, smoking and staring out at the sky with a glazed look on his eyes, he decided he would tell Tsuyuri to come over more often. Not only had Watanuki smiled more, but now he had one leg propped up along the deck, so close that all Doumeki had to do was shift his leg and there would be contact.

He stared at it – that distance of less than five centimeters, at the toe of Watanuki’s shoe and the crease in his pants and the sliver of wood that peeked through from between – until the tap of Watanuki’s kiseru against the tobacco tray drew his eyes towards the rest of the shopkeeper. The knowing look in his eyes, the sympathetic smile sent a constriction through Doumeki’s chest and he knocked back the last of the whiskey in his glass. It burned away the pain of realization before dulling everything just that little bit more until it was bearable.

“I’ll open another bottle,” Watanuki offered, but the moment Doumeki heard that leg shift, the moment the foot so close to his leg twitched, Doumeki set his glass down. “No,” he declined as he leaned back onto his hands and studied the stars, “I’ve had enough.”

He did not release the breath he was holding until he heard Watanuki settle back in and that foot retook its lazy position. Doumeki could feel that knowing gaze directed his way once more, knew Watanuki’s reclamation of his earlier pose was a temptation and dare - a test - but he remained where he sat, still as could be. So long as he did, Watanuki would not build the distance back up between them again. They would never get any closer, either, but that was okay. Doumeki could live with this, so long as it remained for the rest of his life. Because it had never been the food or the liquor or the conversation that had drawn Doumeki to Watanuki’s side, but the spastic teen turned supernatural shopkeeper himself. And that was what kept him coming back and would always keep him coming back: Watanuki and those five centimeters.

That night, at home, Doumeki pulled out the egg Yuuko had once given him as payment for helping Watanuki draw water out of a dead woman’s well and stared at it. Nothing would ever be born of it, but he knew why. Doumeki was not sure he would ever be able to use the egg. Once, eons ago, a woman with red eyes had told him to be selfish, but this was different. Doumeki frowned and tucked the egg away once more.

He had a decision to make.


End file.
